Have you ever felt numbness, tingling, or weakness in your hands after riding? If your answer is YES, then you may have a hand overuse problem.
In fact, as long as you adjust your movements and use protected equipment, you can stay away from pain and injury.
As can be seen from the Tour de France events recorded in photos, the drivers at that time were heroes worshipped by the French people. Even though the water-bottles at that time were still made of metal, people were not used to wearing helmets and professional gloves while riding.
This is not surprising, cause people have not realized how to protect their hands, they rely on hand to hand Tour de France to conquer the world.
It was not until a Japanese named Shimizu Jinzhi invented the first professional cycling gloves that riders officially adopted cycling gloves as one of their personal equipment. The brand founded by Mr. Jinzhi Shimizu is the famous PEARL iZUMi.
Just as American basketball shoes were clearly divided from the concept of sports shoes a hundred years ago, cycling gloves, as a subdivided professional product of cycling equipment, also make riders take it as an important position as cycling clothes and cycling helmets.
Cycling gloves are the special gloves for cyclists. According to different types of bicycles, they can be divided into mountain bike gloves, road bike gloves and downhill gloves. In addition, there are gloves specially designed for extreme sports launched. Both of the safety and comfort are necessary of riding.
According to the different seasons, there are half-finger gloves and full-finger gloves. And, the palm part be thickened according to the different positioning and adaptation conditions, the materials used for the palm pad are also different. For example, the palm pad of the road bike gloves is obviously much thinner than that of the mountain bike gloves.
If your handlebar is a flat handlebar, hold the flat handlebar without professional gloves, the pressure is directly transmitted to the median nerve of the thumb, index finger, middle finger, and some part of the ring finger, causing hand numbness, finger pain, weakness, medically called carpal tunnel syndrome.
Long-term compression of the median nerve can lead to loss of sensation in the thumb, index finger, and middle finger, muscle atrophy, and hand neuralgia radiating to the shoulder and elbow joints.
If your handlebars are curved, you hold the curved handlebar without professional cycling gloves, gripping the handlebars or changing the position of your hands will compress and overextend the ulnar nerve, causing ulnar neuropathy.
The ulnar nerve controls the ring finger and little finger. Short-term compression will cause paralysis and weakness in the ring finger or little finger; long-term compression will cause the ring finger and little finger to lose consciousness and be unable to complete normal finger curling movements, especially the little finger is the most serious.
As long as it is a sports bicycle, the wrist joint is under tension. Because the rider adopts a different sitting position and grip than a recreational bicycle, this puts the wrist joint in an abnormal state of tension for a long time, which affects the nerves and tendons. The negative effects are even lifelong.
The special function of the cycling glove is to minimize the compression on the wrist joint. Compare it with the ordinary glove when the back is laid down, you will find that its front is not flat but upturned, which is exactly coincide with the posture of the rider grasping the handlebars.
As long as it is cycling sports, the protection of the hands is second only to the head. Once a sudden accident occurs during cycling, cycling gloves can effectively prevent bruising and cutting hands when both hands are on the ground. It can be seen that cycling gloves have the same important status as cycling helmets.
Active and passive safety of cycling gloves
Most of the riders’ understanding of riding gloves is at the level of the glove’s own function. In fact, in the correct cognition, riding gloves have both active safety and passive safety (does this sound like the introduction of Volvo’s safety features?)
1. Active safety
Anti-drop car protection:
During rollovers, riders often touch the ground with their palms first to land the body slowly. If no gloves are used for shock absorption, this action can easily wear the palms and severely damage the joints.
Suspension function:
The palm pad is thickened to reduce the impact on the hands.
Anti-slip function:
The palm and the back of the fingers generally have glue, and some use a microfiber cloth with a certain damping, which can play a non-slip function.
2. Passive safety
Nowadays, many ridding gloves have been added with reflective strips/reflective coatings, which can effectively remind each other when a car is coming from the opposite side or the side of the car when riding at night.
Moisture wicking
Sweat absorption, breathability and slip resistance complement each other. When the bicycle is in high-speed motion, the rider’s control of the bicycle largely depends on the skill of the hands. If no gloves are worn, the sweating of the hands will lead to unsafe sliding.
With the prosperity of cycling in recent years, riders can choose more and more cycling gloves, which can make your hands more comfortable on flat roads in the city, and can also cope with various uneven roads in the suburbs.
Looking back at the development history of professional cycling gloves, from the top events to the popularization of the public, this may be one of the most attractive portrayals of cycling as a public sport.
